20 Weeks – Desktop Declutter

On week four of my 20 Week Organization Challenge, I have a confession to make. I am having a really hard time sticking to one item per week. One reason for that is because many of the items I had on my original list seem to run together. For example, I realized that I had inadvertently done #11 on my list when I reorganized the boys closet shelf. Now I’m going to have to think about a new area to clean up in place of that. Not that it will be a problem… there’s plenty to do around this place!

But another example came this week when I went to clean off my desktop, which originally (and embarrassingly) looked like this:

Um, yeah. So I started cleaning. And I realized that to put all that stuff away, I may as well clean out the drawers and do it right. And if I took all the drawers out, I might as well move the desk into the living room as planned. And, well, it was a Tuesday and H was at preschool and E was asleep and Rick was out of town overnight… so I did all three.

I know this breaks the spirit of the baby steps approach and doing one item per week, but I couldn’t help myself with this one. Here are the drawers before (except the center drawer, a.k.a. one of my junk drawers – it’s day is coming).

And the drawers after:

Do you see that there are TWO empty drawers!?!?!? TWO, PEOPLE! Yeah – a lot of junk was in those things. Now there is an office supply drawer, a paper drawer, an envelope and stationary drawer, and a computer software/spare hardware drawer. I did find something for one of the empty drawers – large envelopes and packing tape. I still have one more empty drawer. This went a long way in me figuring out what to do with much of my office stuff since it’ll be in the living room now. The after pics of the desktop -in the living room:

Since there was a bit of “cheating” (in a good way, right?) on this one, here’s what the updated list looks like:

Bathroom cabinet

Boys closet shelf and clothing

Boys toys and bedding storage

Desktop/drawers and move desk out of office

Office corners

Office closet upper shelf

Junk drawers

Buffet

Our bedroom closet

Kitchen desk area

– TBA

– TBA

Make a place for table linens

Canned goods/canning and food storage supplies

Find a place for Rick’s work clothes and my business supplies

Kitchen glasses cupboard

Bathroom linens/storage

Scrapbooking table

My sewing items

Lower kitchen appliance cabinet

I will come up with two more items. And I will try to keep it to one item per week from now on. And really, half that junk that was in the desk is now sitting on my office floor (in piles, of course) waiting to find a new home…wish me luck!

What about you? Have you been cleaning up/cleaning out your spaces?

To see what I’ve done in the last four weeks, check out my other 20 Weeks posts!

Annie!! – I’ve missed you! Thanks for saying hi. I can’t wait until Lent is over and you’re back!! 🙂 I hope you are enjoying this time with your family and a bit less technology, but I don’t think I’ve ever disliked someone’s sacrifice for Lent more. Not the idea, which I think is great, just missing your blog posts and comments. Haha! Hugs til Easter!